


Another Fire

by IoanNemos



Series: Start Here [3]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Language, Might be slightly au, Smoking, alcohol consumption, rated for:, references to past alcohol abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7196612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IoanNemos/pseuds/IoanNemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There is so much to forgive, but you do not / know how to forget.”<br/>Caitlyn Siehl, “Start Here”</p><p>"Hey, you want to be helpful, Sullivan? Go keep an eye on her."<br/>"Whatever you say."</p><p>Elena and Sully, flying home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Fire

She’s standing next to the pool, not quite crying, when he comes out. She turns, sees him, sees his empty hands, sees his face. He doesn’t try to look apologetic. She huffs, not quite in disbelief, and stalks away from the motel.

He follows her into the parking lot, lighting another cigar.

 

 

They meet up briefly at the airport, when he approaches her at the arrivals/departures board. “Which one is yours?” he asks.

Her gaze flicks to him and then away. “Go to hell,” she says. It’s an expression of more exhaustion than emotion, meant no more cruelly than _I can’t take this anymore_ or _I don’t want to talk about it._

He looks at the board, taking note of likely flights. “Gate 3?”

She nods once, adjusts her bag on her shoulder, and walks away.

 

 

It’s a four hour flight to Johannesburg, and he spends most of it staring at her right hand, nine rows ahead, gripping the aisle armrest.

He spends the rest of it convincing the flight attendant to bring him just _one_ more whiskey, honest. He really means it this time.

 

 

He sees her again once he disembarks, waiting for him with an expression of patient annoyance. “It’s a three hour layover, but then it’s straight to New York, so you’d better buy your ticket right away.”

He attempts a smile. “And then I’ll buy you dinner?”

She doesn’t bother trying to smile back. “Fine.”

 

 

She orders a glass of wine with her burger, and looks at him as if daring him to object.

He orders the same, and they sit in silence until the food arrives. He inhales after the waiter has left. “Elena--”

“Sullivan,” she says, her entire posture a warning. “Don’t. Just… _don’t._ ”

The distance implied in the full name hurts almost as much the second time.

 

 

There are enough empty seats that he forgoes his assigned seat to sit across the aisle from her. She rolls her eyes at this. “This is completely unnecessary, you know. If the pilot dies, will you fly the plane too?”

“I do have a pilot’s license,” he reminds her.

“Is that even real?” There’s a breath, in which she concludes that was too far. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” And it is. He knows she must feel raw. God knows he does. He still feels the heaviness of the guilt in the motel room, the uncertainty, the betrayal. Elena stepping backward as Nate stepped forward.

She rests her head on her hand, teeth working her bottom lip. Her eyes search the carpet, then the ceiling. She hovers there for a moment before letting her emotions out. “I just can’t _believe_ him,” she starts, teeth gritting, fingers clenching.

He knows Elena Fisher well enough not to start nodding sympathetically.

 

 

“--and you know what, I could have gotten past _that_. I could’ve. But instead of telling me, he _lied_ to me-- _again_ \-- and… I’m just-- I’m so _tired_ of it. He’s always been full of bullshit, but this? This takes the cake.” She exhales through her teeth and glares at the floor, then at him. “And _you!_ Not a _word_ from you about Nate having a brother! What the hell, Victor?”

While listening to her, he’s been picking his words carefully, yet when it comes to it, he still feels unprepared. “Sam was his brother,” he mutters after a moment, half-shrugging. “I figured… it was up to him to bring him up. And you know how it is-- you don’t bring up something big right away, time goes by and it gets harder and harder to bring it up. Gets so it’s hanging over your head. And, hey, if _Nate_ thought he was dead…”

“But nothing?” she presses, leaning into the aisle a little. “Not a _word?_ Not a single reference from either of you that, hey, Nate’s not actually an only child--”

“Losing Sam damn near killed him,” he says bluntly, and waits for her to pause, consider, and inhale before cutting her off. “And I don’t mean that metaphorically or hyperbolically or whatever-the-hell-else-ically. They let him out of the hospital and he all but parachuted back into the damn prison trying to get a different answer. Then once he accepted it, he was-- he was a man possessed. He threw himself into whatever he could find, taking jobs from anybody, didn’t matter who, where, what, or how shady. For probably six months or so, swear to God I thought I was gonna lose him.” He hesitates.

Elena, now halfway into the aisle, watches his face closely and frowns. “And then what happened?” she asks, a premonition in her voice that she already doesn’t like his answer.

Neither does he, but at this point he’s said too much for Elena to drop it. “I… Ah, hell. I took him out drinking, got him good and hammered. I told him he couldn’t keep going the way he was, he cried about it, I made him promise me he’d be more careful, he promised, and afterward... we just... we agreed to never talk about it again.”

Elena stares at him for an excruciating amount of time, a multitude of expressions crossing her face. “You’re fucking _joking_ ,” she says finally, flatly. “Sully, what the _fuck?_ ”

“I’m not _proud_ of it! But I wasn’t gonna lose him, too.” He pauses, then shrugs. “I don’t know, me and Sam-- we got off on the wrong foot and never recovered. But… I tried, y’know? And we agreed on taking care of Nate, so if he was self-destructing, Sam would’ve wanted me to step in, stop him.”

“By agreeing to never, ever talk about probably the most traumatic thing to ever happen to him.” Elena’s tone is so flat he could build a card tower on it, her sarcasm thick enough to cut with a knife. “That’s perfectly reasonable.” Her indignation pushes her out of her chair and she walks away, running a hand through her hair.

He grimaces and looks away. Reasonable? Bullshit. It was barely workable, and he knew that from the start. He thinks about how Nate didn’t talk to him again for a year, the distance between them he’s still trying to bridge. He can’t count how many attempted conversations have been poisoned by that night, the crushing number of times he’s tried to invite trust only to watch Nate spook and sidle away. He doesn’t need to be a psychologist to see where, when, and in what ways his best intentions have fucked up Nate’s life.

On the other hand, Nate is still around to shrug him off, and in Sully’s world that’s gotta count as some kind of victory.

 

 

Falling asleep in less than ideal circumstances is a skill he’s honed for decades. It doesn’t matter where he is, or what vehicle he’s bouncing around in, or how much time he has to rest. In his line of work, you learn to sleep when and where you can. He’s fallen asleep in cargo plane jump seats, in the backs of jeeps, in cheap motels and hospital chairs.

He half watches the inflight movie waiting for her to come back to her seat. When she comes back thirty minutes later she drops into it, red eyed, face closed, and digs out her music player and earbuds.

He half watches the rest of the movie waiting to fall asleep. And then watches it again.

 

 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she whispers somewhere over the Atlantic, somewhere before daylight. She’s huddled in her seat, wrapped in a blanket.

He meets her tired eyes, wants to get angry. He wants to ask, so what? What makes this time so different? How much can one more betrayal hurt? You think this has been easy for him? For _me?_ Where are you drawing the line, anyway? What makes this the last straw? Look at it from his perspective. What would you do in his place?

He meets her watery eyes, wants to beg, plead, say, you can, you can, pick yourself up. You’ve done it before; please do it again. I know you can, you’re the strongest woman I know. Please, please pull yourself together again, go after him again, please trust him again. He held himself together for so long, he had a good reason, hear him out, give him another chance, he’s been trying so hard, please, he’s been through Hell.

But damned if Nate hasn’t dragged her through some of it with him. The things he’s put her through, the stress, the worry. Their cometary relationship was only recently stabilized, and now he’s thrown it back out of orbit, thrown it all away for someone she never imagined existed.

Nate’s put him through plenty, too, but he can only blame himself for that. He can only blame himself for most of it, really. He reaches across the aisle and takes her fingers in his. “I know,” he whispers back. “I’m sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Elena's reaction to Nate's personal history lesson ("Now you know everything") would be different if she'd heard it first from Sully, but maybe not.
> 
> I couldn't figure out how to end it, so it ends here, a little anticlimactically. If I make a breakthrough later, I'll expand it.


End file.
